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1. INTRODUCTION
The domination of the service sector today is confirmed by the fact that 70 of the world GDP is realized in the service sector. The same sector sees the
concentration of 70 of workforce. In order to ensure and keep the quality expected by today’s
customertourist, we need to differentiate two aspects of quality in general with particular attention to tourism, namely: design quality and the quality of
conformity with design.
1
The design quality is a concept implying the presentation of productsservices directed to the needs of the clients. The hotel company can
satisfy the demands of the client tourist only if they are included in its design, i.e. in order to do that, his demands need to be included or “built into” the
productservice of the hotel. The hotels do market research in order to determine who their customers are and which of their demands require special attention.
The quality of conformity with the design completes the first aspect because it represents the level to which the productservice meets the demands of
the market. The quality represents the satisfaction of the client’s needs and in order to achieve it and keep it in time, we not only need a continuous research
into the demands of the clients but also of our own capabilities. Such an approach would ensure the pursuing of constant improvements according to the demands of
the clients.
The harsh competition on tourist market requires the development of a new approach to management known as TQM – Total Quality Management.
When introducing the quality management system, hotel companies use various approaches adapted to their business conditions. The following part of the paper
describes the most common service quality measurement criteria, in particular the model of internal service quality and the SERVQUAL model.
The paper presents a detailed analysis of arguments that have contributed to a high positioning of the SERVQUAL model among the various
ways to measure service quality.
2. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
Service quality is a way to manage business processes in order to ensure total satisfaction to the customer on all levels internal and external. It is an
1
Oakland, J. S., op. cit., p. 10., in: Tourism and hospitality management, no. 1., Faculty of Tourist and Hospitality Management Opatija, Opatija.
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83 approach that leads to an increase of competitiveness, effectiveness and flexibility
of the entire company.
2
Benefits arising from a high quality are reflected in a more competitive positioning on the market, but also in a better business result. This statement can
be proved by measuring the increase of profitability and market share. The results of a research carried out in the USA on a sample of 2600 companies in the period
between 1987 and 2002, show a direct connection between the level of quality of goods and services and their financial performances. As a matter of fact, it was
observed that all indicators of success of a company, like market share, return on investments, property turnover coefficient, show significantly more value in
companies with a higher level of goods and services.
3
The efficiency of the whole system is possible only if we monitor and analyze the demands of the customers, as well as define and control the process
and implement constant improvements.Quality is a complex term, made up of several elements and criteria.
All quality elements or criteria are equally important in order to obtain one hundred percent quality. If only one element of quality is missing, the
complete quality of product or service is impossible to obtain. Besides the mentioned general elements of quality, the product or
service have to satisfy specific elements of quality, according to the demands of the profession in their pertaining activity. Today quality is the result of growing
and increasingly diverse needs of the consumers, along with a highly increasing competition, market globalization and the development of modern technology.
Problems in service quality measurement arise from a lack of clear and measurable parameters for the determination of quality. It is not the case with
product quality since products have specific and measurable indicators like durability, number of defective products and similar, which make it relatively
easy to determine the level of quality.
2
Oakland, J.S., foreword., in: Tourism and hospitality management, no. 1., Faculty of Tourist and Hotel Management Opatija, Opatija.
3
Grove S.J., and R.P. Fisk, The impact of other customers on service experiences: a critical incident examination of getting along, Journal of Retailing, 73, 1997, p. 63-85.
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84 Table 1.
General elements of product and service quality
Dimension Definition Availability
Product or service is easily available Guarantee
The personnel is polite, kind and educated Communication
Clients receive information on all products and services and their changes in the language they can understand
Expertise The personnel has the necessary knowledge and skills to
produce and sell products or provide services Standard
Products and services are up to the standard Behaviour
Kindness, good manners and care of the personnel towards clients
Flaw Each quality that is not defined and affects the satisfaction
of the client Duration
Performance, service result or product last longer Engagement
The personnel shows understanding and gives individual attention to each client
Humanity Product or service are provided so as to preserve dignity and
self-respect of the client Effects
Product or service produces the expected effect Reliability
Capability to sell products or provide services in a discreet and reliable manner
Responsibility Definite duration of product sale or providing of services
Safety Product or service are provided in the safest possible way,
without any kind of risk or danger
Source: Avelini Holjevac, I., Upravljanje kvalitetom u turizmu i hotelskoj industriji Quality management in tourism and hotel industry, Faculty of
Tourism and Hospitality Management, Opatija, 2002, pp. 12-13.
The most important characteristics of services, separating them neatly from products, are the impossibility to separate production from consumption; the
impossibility to store services; their non material quality; transience and heterogeneity.
The impossibility to separate production from consumption and the impossibility to store services implicitly includes a simultaneous production and
consumption, which is characteristic for most services. Since the services are performances, ideas or concepts rather than objects, they cannot be seen in the
same way as products and are, therefore, characterized by their being immaterial. Furthermore, it is impossible to preserve services, which raises the issue of
harmonizing offer and demand for services. The same service can be provided by different persons in an institution, and each of them might provide it in their own
way so that heterogeneity also counts among characteristics of services that differentiate them from products.
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85 The quality system is based on principles such as commitment of the
management, focus on the customers, employees and facts, constant improvement and co-operation of all the participants to the process.
Research carried out in 101 companies in the service provision field Zemke, Schaff, 1989 show the following results:
− Managers are “obsessed” with listening to the changeable wishes, needs and expectations of their customers, and the wish to respond to them.
− A solidly defined strategy of servicing “inspired by consumers” is created by managers in their companies, and transferred to the staff.
− Managers develop and maintain a customer-friendly system of providing services.
− Managers look for, and then inspire and develop staff that is in direct contact with consumers.
Two basic approaches to service quality have been identified in the early nineties of the twentieth century. The first approach is “technical” and product
oriented, while the second approach is customer related. These two approaches have been recognized as results of managerial efforts to consider the aspect of
quality when providing services from two angles: on one hand, the manager tends to abide by the set standards, while on the other, he wishes to satisfy the
customer. The first approach is production oriented and tends to the consistency of service by impeding or minimizing the influence of the personnel directly
involved in providing a service.
The service providing process is defined as a standard performance. The role of the staff providing services is reduced to the realization of the defined
performance and the staff’s discretion, i.e. its influence on the performance itself is minimized. In that way we can achieve maximum efficiency. Such a “product
based” approach to the process of service provision is the result of the managerial view on this process as a series of elements that require a trained coordination and
control, while the service itself is strictly standardized. The “product based” approach is contradictory to the aspirations of the consumers to be treated as
individual people with marked personal tendencies and expectations. Besides, such an approach, “industrial” and cliché, is in contrast with the wish of the
consumer to find warm and friendly manners when consuming the service.
The second approach is consumer oriented. Expectations are the basis for satisfaction. After consuming the service, they compare their earlier
expectations with experience. Results can range from satisfaction to dissatisfaction. The consumer anticipates the service standards in his
expectations. Wilkie claims: “The seed of the consumer’s dissatisfaction is sown in the pre-purchase stage, before reaching the decision to purchase.”
4
According
4
Wilkie, 1996
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86 to this, the consumer creates his own, individual benchmark, and the rating of his
satisfaction is the result of his after purchase state. Normann, the creator of the concept “moment of truth”
5
, points out that the first generation of researchers in the field of service sector management, had
the task to determine the specificities of the services as opposed to other sectors, which paved the way for the second generation of researchers who focused on the
relations in the service industry, the behaviour when providing service and service design, with the aim to optimize the “moment of truth”
6
. On the basis of the above exposed thesis, the understanding of service
quality is based on the paradigm of service. In that sense, the service sector company manager looks for a “balance between the human factor and technology,
between expenses and profit and, after all, between quality and productivity” Gummesson, 1993.
The organization has to strive for success. When the set goals are achieved, we set other goals, striving for higher levels of product, processes and
service efficiency. Accepting the concept of constant improvement means changing the management style. A total quality cannot be a program of changes
with a set duration, it is a continuous, constant process. The questions set before the organization are the following: How do you keep up the constant striving for
new improvement? What kind of measures and revisions of the business process do you have to use? How do you convince the employees that the business
success and survival of the organizations can only occur if all employees accept constant actions to improve all their activities in the organizations?
A successful organization constantly identifies and tackles the causes of problems or potential problems that employees have in doing their jobs. For that
reason every employee has to be trained to identify such problems. The management and the employees must work together on implementing suitable
corrective and preventive measures.
Each business process is subject to variability. Process variability is considered a normal phenomenon that is usually counted on. Parameter
variability in the field of transformation of incoming values into outcoming values of the process affects the variability of the entire business process. For
example, a lack of a specific product on the supplies market may require a substitution with another product of similar characteristics. Departure from the
usual process variability can affect the quality of meals as results of a process,
5
“Moments of truth”, Normann, 1991
6
The phrase was taken from the title of a book by Carlzon, 1987, in which the author describes his experience as a client of the Scandinavian tour-operator Vingressor and the airline company SAS.
EKON. MISAO PRAKSA DBK. GOD XVI. 2007 BR. 1. 81-98
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87 the timing of a process cycle, expenses of process quality, the level of satisfaction
of the consumeruser with the process result
7
. Each episode of variability and a departure from the optimal process
does not necessarily have a negative impact on the quality level of the process results. However, if the process is moving away from its optimal course so much
as to get close to the acceptable limit or it has surpassed the limit, cost incur due to poor quality. The process becomes too expensive, jeopardizing the quality of
the results and thus seriously risking dissatisfaction on the part of the clientconsumer, in other words, it becomes irrational.
3. SERVICE QUALITY MEASUREMENT IN HOTEL
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